Stray
by indelible
Summary: Contrary to popular opinion, Kyouya is a good husband. Otherwise known as the fic wherein Haruhi goes insane. KyouHaru.


**Stray**

Urei Sachi

_Today I'm filled with longing- for what I'm not, for what is impossible. Some days I think this one place isn't enough, when I want to live multiple lives and be allowed to love without limits._

-Gretel Ehrlich, Looking for a Lost Dog

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**Stray**

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i.

Some days Haruhi wonders what happened to herself. In between waking and dozing, she has lapses of silence that could be mistaken for insanity. She stares at the paper thin walls, tries to bore holes into the ceiling, and studies the way the light always falls short of reaching the center of her room, reminding her of an arrow that fails to hit its mark, or a wayward bullet with no direction that depresses into an unlikely target, defying the laws of physics without making it overly exaggerated. She thinks that these scattered thoughts and observations show just how much time she has in her hands. Time she is wasting, Kyouya does not fail to tell her; time is always precious and lacking for Kyouya, and Haruhi wants to give him her time, whatever's left of it, if only to put it to good use for once.

She's not sure of what happened to her, but she's slowly getting used to this half-dead state (dare she say lifestyle) of hers. Sometimes Haruhi can feel her limbs getting weaker and number. Underneath the sheets, she flexes her fingers and does not close her eyes until Kyouya comes in and touches her cheek with the tips of his fingers in a display of uncommon tenderness. Those times leave her warm and sated, at least until Kyouya leaves the room, whatever this room is. It's not a mental hospital, she thinks. At least, it doesn't look like it, because those places have white-washed walls, and, unless Haruhi is going blind, these walls aren't white. She can't remember if it's hers – their – room, or if this is home, because it feels like a dream, the kind of dream where everything is silent and normal looking, a boring slice of life that would be forgotten when you wake up (if you remembered to wake up, that is). But she's not waking up because this isn't a dream; this is real, and you can never wake up twice from something that wasn't a dream.

"I woke up once though," she tells Kyouya later, "I woke up and I come back here every time."

Kyouya looks perturbed for a second, until he closes his eyes and refuses to look at Haruhi, because he knows he doesn't want this.

"What happened to you?" Kyouya whispers in the darkness of Haruhi's clouded mind, and, before drifting off to another dreamless sleep, Haruhi smiles.

It doesn't matter.

ii.

Two things enter her mind when she wakes up. One is the way the sunlight seems to creep closer to her bed, the other is the breakfast waiting on the bedside table.

Her movements are automatic, mechanical at most, because that's how things are in this place – whatever this place is. She sits up, drinks a glass of water and swallows a pill (Strange, she thinks she ought to have done it the other way around), and eats her soup quietly. The soup is delicious – or, at least, that's what she remembers it to be. The soup's tastes barely registers in her mind, because it's always been the same. She feels some remorse for whoever cooked it. She doesn't deserve this.

But today is different, because this is the first time she feels anything for someone else after a long time.

She tells Kyouya that with a smile on her face, and Kyouya allows his mask to slip, the corners of his lips tilting upwards into a small smile, before he presses his lips together tightly in a thin, decisive line.

"That's nice," Kyouya tells her, but she's not sure if Kyouya's lying through his teeth to come up with a response, or if he really means it.

She picks up her brush and starts to comb her hair, humming a small tune to herself.

It doesn't matter.

iii.

Two days later, she walks around the room slowly, pacing back and forth, her movements increasing their tempo, and she doesn't stop even after Kyouya threatens to handcuff her to the bed. She opens the curtains, shuts them, opens the drawers, rummages through papers, pens, journals, books, junk, junk, _junk_, until Kyouya takes her wrists and commands her to stay still.

She gazes at him with terrified eyes, and he asks, very softly, "What is it?" 

She looks away for a second, and when she stares at him again, he thinks that there is a new kind of strangeness that is surrounding them.

"It's me," she tells him weakly, "I can't remember who I am."

Then, this time her face turns as white as a sheet, and she whispers, "I don't remember your name too."

Kyouya meets her searching gaze, even when he wants to close his eyes, and presses his lips to her eyes when she starts crying.

It doesn't matter.

iv.

Two hours after her panic attack, he tells her stories, stories about a girl, and he has to remind her ten times that the girl is her. He tells her about how they met, both as boys, but he had known she was female. He tells her about how they once circled a commoner's mall, and how his father fought with someone else's father over whose son she should marry.

He doesn't tell her that he attempted to sexually take advantage of her, and how her eyes were so wide and unflinching and _trusting_, her voice ringing clearly in the room and in his ears for hours after he let her go. He doesn't tell her of days they spent swamped with accounts to settle, and instances wherein she dressed up in outrageous costume to please the fangirls.

He doesn't tell her that she was in a host club wherein she met the craziest (and possibly greatest) friends she could have had.

It doesn't matter.

v.

A week after that, she starts to dream about him, but those dreams are fragmented. Kyouya smirking, Kyouya typing, Kyouya perched predatorily above her, watching her and only her.

He comes later than usual, but she tells him nothing.

They are silent for the whole day.

It doesn't matter.

vi.

There is a ring on her finger. She thinks it is hers, but she can never be certain. He has one exactly like hers; she knows, because she's watched it glint, even in the darkness of the room. She holds hers up against the light and watches it flash dangerously.

She turns to him and holds her hand up.

"Am I married?"

He looks up from the book he is reading, barely masking the surprise he is feeling. "Yes. You are."

The words feel strange. She is married.

"To?"

She sees a flicker of something in his eyes, but he closes them and holds his head in his hands.

Rain falls outside, and she thinks that there must be a hole in the ceiling, because his cheeks are glistening with droplets of water.

It doesn't matter.

vii.

She has visions of children that night. It fills her heart with unspeakable sorrow, and never has the room seemed so dark in the day.

There are so many questions she wants to ask, so many stories she wants to hear; she wants him to hold her and kiss her and run his hands through her hair, wants to stare at him and remember who he was before she forgot him, forgot herself, forgot all of them, but it is too much to ask of both of them.

It isn't fair.

She waits for him patiently, a hand resting on her womb, and there is something she has to remember about it, but she can't.

It doesn't matter.

viii.

He doesn't come that day. Or the day after that.

She sits up, wasting patiently, falls asleep, wakes again, and stares at the door.

There are birds chirping outside, and she crawls under the sheets and tries to fall asleep.

It doesn't matter.

ix.

The light finally reaches the farthest wall, and it coincides neatly with the day he visits her again.

He stops at the doorway and watches her draw the curtains, and he releases the breath he is holding when she turns to him, hiding her face behind her eyes, crying, saying, "I'm sorry for forgetting."

He shuts the door, holds out his hands to her, and slumps against it tiredly; she cries softly, burying her face into his chest, and he closes his eyes to hide his relief.

He brings a hand to the top of her head and strokes her hair.

The waiting, the crying, the desperation…

It doesn't matter.

x.

He takes her out of the room finally, and brings her to a different place. He holds her hand as they make their way to the door, and he releases her hand to get his keys.

"Welcome home, Haruhi," he smiles at her, warmer and brighter than before, and she smiles back.

"It's good to be back," she responds, lacing their fingers together in a tighter hold.

They enter the house, side by side, and suddenly all those long months in that place don't seem to matter to her. She is back where she belongs, with him, back in the world where dreams are only dreams and life is never forgotten, only disrupted to make you realize the things you need to know.

To him, only she mattered.

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END


End file.
